NewLaw down under

The emergence of NewLaw in the Australia corporate client scene was kick-started by the foundation of Advent Lawyers and Balance Legal in Sydney and Perth, respectively in 2008.

In conjunction with the Commonwealth Bank, Beaton Research + Consulting conducts a quarterly Legal Market Pulse study of the 50 largest law firms in Australia. In March 2014, 32 law firm leaders responded to the survey.

For the first time the respondents were asked if their respective firms had competed for work against NewLaw providers in the last 12 months. And if they had, against which of the Australian NewLaw firms?

The study also reveals:

Eight of the largest law firms in Australia have competed against NewLaw firms.

AdventBalance, Bespoke Law and Plexus are the NewLaw firms most frequently mentioned.

Bespoke Law received the most mentions.

…

We have by no means arrived at a tipping point, we are still in the early days of NewLaw’s development. But we are reminded of Clayton Christensen’s ‘being able to predict when it happens is more complex than to predict it will happen’.